Colonial and Imperialist Traces of the American Transcendentalist Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson in Translating Hafez's Poetry

Authors

Abstract

This article examines the colonial and imperialist traces of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the founder of the American school of transcendentalism, in translating Hafez's poetry. The main issue of this research is why Emerson paid attention to Hafez's poetry and why did Emerson translate Masnavi number two of Hafez? The purpose of this article is to show that Emerson's translation of Masnavi No. 2 of Hafez's Divan accords with the concepts of Orientalism, that is, in his translation of Hafez's poetry, he considers the West superior and the East inferior. The research method of this article is descriptive, analytical and library-oriented and the theoretical framework of the article is based on the orientalist theories of Edward Said. The results of this article show that Emerson translated and distorted Hafez's poem according to his Western standards and introduced it as portraying wine and homosexuality.

Keywords:

Colonialism, Emerson, Hafez, Orientalism, Transcendentalism

Author Biography

Roohollah Roozbeh, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan

Academic Member, Department of English Language, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Iran;

References

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Published

2022-07-21

How to Cite

Roozbeh, R. (2022). Colonial and Imperialist Traces of the American Transcendentalist Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson in Translating Hafez’s Poetry. Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 20(78), 47–62. Retrieved from https://journal.translationstudies.ir/ts/article/view/943

Issue

Section

Academic Research Paper

DOR